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URBAN LIVING: Anthropological Evolutionary Urbanism

Luca S. D'Acci

Forthcoming book (early 2026)

This forthcoming book reports findings from an extensive academic literature across disciplines not usually talking among each other, consolidating a new perspective for urban planning, centering on human nature, ultimately intended.
While picturing an idea of most current big cities being not ideal for our wellbeing, it also prizes them as a great human achievement which could, and should, get better and better. It underlines the importance of smaller settlements on the basis of the empirical evidence, without necessarily having to escape from the big city, which instead could become more attractive if wisely planned and integrated in the larger multivariate territory.

From the Preface:

In the process of laying the foundations for a new critique of human societies and human habitats, I wrote this book with the aim to collect, sometimes interpret, and disseminate knowledge from different disciplines – typically not considered in urban planning and (e)valuations – reorganizing them into a least common denominator helping educated thoughts toward making better human habitats.
Endemic to social sciences and urban studies for over a century, the rural-urban debate lacks an evolutionary perspective.

[...] We live in under-optimal versions of our settlements; the attempt in the end is to bring what could be called the Anthropological-Evolutionary Urbanism introduced in this book, to bear on the traditional urban and social studies for the betterment of our settlement living.

From the Afterthoughts:

[...] Humans are not victims of cities and megacities; they are the authors of a story none wrote. But today we can rewrite this story if it is not the one we want, by (re)valorising smaller settlements and making big cities more pleasant.

The shimmering allure of cities should draw us as bees to flowers, not as mosquitoes to zappers.

I am certain that this betterment route will create cities so attractive and agreeable as to proudly epitomise one of the greatest physical manifestations of human intellect.

... ambitious...

Luca D’Acci’s Urban Living is an ambitious interdisciplinary inquiry into how cities shape human life, spanning evolutionary anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, primatology, and sociology. For me, its enduring value is the truth it names: survival is not the same as flourishing. True flourishing calls for cities that join their Neolithic gift—the vibrant intermixing of peoples and ideas—with our older Paleolithic inheritance: nature still visible, tangible, and wild.

Peter H. Kahn
Psychologist

Professor of Psychology, Director of the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems (HINTS) Lab at the University of Washington. Editor-in-Chief of Ecopsychology. Author of Technological Nature: Adaptation and the Future of Human Life.

... novelty, breadth and depth of thinking

This book reflects on a personal journey that the author has taken over the last 10 years. It emphasises the importance of scale and diversity in urban form, suggesting that there is no ideal but only differences. A strong case is made for taking an holistic approach that integrates perspectives from a range of social, medical and natural sciences. The book is well worth reading for its novelty, breadth and depth of thinking.

David Banister
Geographer

Professor Emeritus at School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, former Director of the Environmental Change Institute, and of the Transport Studies Unit.

... compelling...

This book could not be more timely. As cities expand worldwide, understanding how they shape our minds and well-being has become a central challenge. Drawing on the latest findings from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and urban studies, Luca D’Acci offers a compelling synthesis of how modern urban life interacts with brains that evolved for very different environments. Rather than idealizing or condemning urbanization, Urban Living integrates diverse evidence into a thoughtful assessment of the opportunities and risks of city life, and how these might be managed through better design and policy. The result is an helpful guide to how humans can thrive in habitats that are, in evolutionary terms, still very new to us.

Andreas Meyer-Lindenberg
Psychiatrist, Neuroscientist

Director of the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim and Professor at Heidelberg University; author of Nature and Science studies. Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience Applied, laureate of the ECNP Neuropsychopharmacology Award, Prix Roger de Spoelberch, and Robert Sommer Medal, and among the world’s most Highly Cited Researchers.

... fascinating...

What is it like for a great ape - furless, but not fearless - to find itself in a novel environment that in many ways deviates from the environment in which it evolved? Does the new environment impact its well-being or its physical and mental health? "Urban living”, as we learn from the book by Luca S. D’Acci, is indeed challenging for a creature with our behavioural and genetic make-up. But it is also full of opportunities - otherwise it would not have happened that the majority of members of our species nowadays seem to "prefer" urban life over rural. Luca S. D’Acci has reviewed a huge amount of information and digested it for us readers in the form of a fascinating book on urban living from an anthropological and evolutionary perspective. This is great reading that I highly recommend.

Martin Brüne
Psychiatrist, Neurologist

Professor of Psychiatry and Head of the Division of Cognitive Neuropsychiatry and Psychiatric Preventive Medicine at the LWL University-Hospital, Ruhr-University Bochum. Author of Evolutionary Psychiatry and Psychosomatic Medicine, and co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Evolutionary Medicine.

... pathbreaking...

Darwin’s study of moths in 19th century Birmingham, England proved that evolution did not cease with urbanization. The epigenetic revolution reveals that genes are not simply inherited and expressed but expressed and even changed (via methylation) through interactions with the environment. With global urbanization currently at 58% and rising, the environment for humans is increasingly urban. D’Acci’s pathbreaking book Urban Living offers a much-needed assessment of what scientist have learned about human adaptation, development, and evolution in urban settings.

Douglas .S. Massey
Sociologist

Henry G. Bryant Professor at Princeton University, former President of the American Sociological Association, and 2025 Princess of Asturias Laureate for Social Sciences. Author of Strangers in a Strange Land: Humans in an Urbanizing World.